


there's blood in my mouth cause i've been biting my tongue all week

by jencat



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Lots of Cursing, cursing, david being completely out of his depth, karen and dinah fighting crime and being snippy, like karen curses all the time, like that's all they talk about, mention of frank castle, mildly crack fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 00:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17457050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/pseuds/jencat
Summary: It's not until he's standing by the door of Karen Page's apartment building that the enormity of what he's doing really sets in for David. He checks the time; tries to remember exactly where he told Sarah he was going at 9pm on a Wednesday night.(There's a pretty good chance he actually told her the truth; he always tries to, these days. And his intentions are good. Maybe he said something about trying to sort out something with one of Pete's friends? Does she know if Pete even has other friends? The memory is a little fuzzy with panic; but it certainly sounds like something he might have said).**Karen won't talk to Frank. David decides to investigate...This may have been a mistake.





	there's blood in my mouth cause i've been biting my tongue all week

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this a year ago, and honestly? It's slightly crack!fic about Karen and David not-quite-bonding over Frank, not quite 100% in character and a little bit bonkers.I absolutely love it anyway?  
> I adore the dialogue, it was a ridiculous amount of fun, but it never quite... ended. I'll quite likely be able to finish it pretty soon depending on how much TPs2 is about to make it deeply non-canon, though, so here's the first part, at least.  
> It almost, nearly could be canon for DDs3 if you squint, but I couldn't bear to leave out the line that fails it (although I screeched like a pterodactyl when the box of sealed records appeared before Fisk, go figure).
> 
> Title is from Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley

It's not until he's standing by the door of Karen Page's apartment building that the enormity of what he's doing really sets in for David. He checks the time; tries to remember exactly where he told Sarah he was going at 9pm on a Wednesday night.

(There's a pretty good chance he actually told her the truth; he always _tries_ to, these days. And his _intentions_ are good. Maybe he said something about trying to sort out something with one of Pete's friends? Does she know if Pete even _has_ other friends? The memory is a little fuzzy with panic; but it certainly _sounds_ like something he might have said).

He looks up, checks the lights are still on in her apartment. He may have done a little entry-level snooping to make sure she'd be at home this evening (but really, he only intercepted a couple of texts; barely anything compared to what he was _capable_ of) and mostly it had made him feel sad, and even worse about what he was trying to do. There's a nagging part of his brain that says _wouldn't a phone call have sufficed_ , but honestly it sounds a lot like something Sarah would have said. If they'd had that conversation. Which they hadn't.

He definitely feels worse now.

The street door clicks in front of him, and he jumps about a foot in the air. Which apparently looks not-suspicious-at-all to the sleepy looking dude who holds the door open for him. He tries a nervous smile and walks in; heart hammering up the two flights of stairs like he'd just run a mile.

He knows which apartment she lives in; of course he does, _information is his thing_.

He wishes he'd kind of had a little more information about what was going on in Frank's head before deciding to drive all the way into the city, but needs as must and all that. Sometimes you had to be pretty goddamn daring when you were trying to fix your friend's fucked up lives. He figures he'd learned that from Frank.

There's music playing faintly inside when he stops outside her door; something retro with guitars and a female singer he doesn't quite recognize. He gathers his heart in his hands and knocks on the goddamn door.

The music stops almost right away; or at least gets turned down too low for him to hear.

"Who is that?" He barely recognizes Karen's voice; it sounds a lot more.. ragged than he remembers; thick with either anger or fear, he can't quite decide.

"Um, it's, uh... It's David Lieberman, Karen?" He makes sure to step into view of the peephole and look as unthreatening as possible. Which isn't too tricky; he's not exactly the menacing type. And from what he knows, Karen Page is a hell of a lot more comfortable with guns than he is.

There's silence from the other side and he tries to smile non-threateningly in the vague direction of the peephole. "I just needed to talk to you. Five minutes." He shrugs apologetically, hoping she can see it. "I'm really sorry to turn up this late without calling first. It's just... about Frank?"

The truth was, he hadn't been thinking. He'd still been pretty damn reeling from that last conversation with Frank yesterday; the unfairness of it all and the compulsion to _do something to fix this_ bearing down until he honestly couldn't remember what his plan had been in the first place.

He just knew that he hadn't mentioned a word of it to Frank (because that would have been a _terrible idea)_ , or to Sarah, because either of them would have told him to do something else that wasn't... this. Hell, he's even starting to think maybe he should have started with consulting Curtis (or... Madani, if he was feeling particularly brave) before he got anywhere near this level of unwise.

The door clanks; what he assumes are several heavy duty locks being yanked open before the door itself is wrenched inwards. He steps back involuntarily at the baleful glare of Karen Page, clutching the door in one hand and her gun in the other with a white knuckled grip.

On the plus side, it's not pointed at him.

She hisses, "How about you don't go saying his name where everyone can hear it." and he swallows, hard; already feeling like he's fucked up somehow. She gestures abruptly for him to go inside, and he awkwardly sidles past her; eyes on the gun all the time.

He glances around the apartment - distractedly thinking that it would have looked like a safe, cozy space, all bookshelves and lamplight-- were it not for the woman standing at the center of it with her gun, acting like there was some siege going on he couldn't quite see.

The locks go back on; she turns away from the door and picks up her scotch glass again with the hand that isn't holding the gun; glares at the glass and then glares at him again.

"Forgive me, but what the _fuck_ do you want, David?" She's standing there like some terrible avenging angel in stockinged feet and her crumpled work clothes and he gets the feeling she's been nursing that glass and the gun for a good few hours now.

He takes a breath. "I am really sorry, to turn up at your door like this but-- Frank said you won't talk to him and I just-- I wanted to-- he's doing so much better now, and I just thought--"

He stutters to a halt, words deserting him at the look on Karen's face.

" _Are you fucking kidding me?_ "

There was a moment there when he was honestly convinced she was just going to shoot him to stop him talking. He thinks maybe he should have planned out more of what he wanted to say before he turned up; hell, maybe he should have written it all out on cards like that stupid scene in Love Actually --maybe he should have had _Frank_ write it out on cards, and he could just hold them up--

He's never even spoken to Karen before, he realizes; certainly never met her in person, and this is a _really messed up introduction_. It's so typical of how his mind works that he felt like he kind of knew her already from all the background information; from the few words he's heard on the subject from Frank, and how any mention of her name used to seem to short out the rational parts of Frank's mind. And how lately, after he thought all the mess was sorted out, and Frank had a goddamn _life_ now, he'd almost stopped talking about her at all, except for the occasional, evasive response to a direct question.

And yesterday, the evasive response had included the part where yes, Karen had actually asked him not to contact her. And she'd used the exact words that would ensure Frank did that, without questioning or arguing it. Because if David knows one thing, it's that Frank Castle would not for one second impose on Karen Page's life if she told him not to; that he honestly believes being in her life would be nothing but trouble for her.

There's the thing: David has done his digging; he's all about the due diligence. And every scrap of information he found about Karen Page has done nothing but suggest that _maybe she's a hell of a lot more trouble than Frank these days._

He shakes his head slightly, holds his hands up trying to show he's backing off as much as possible. "I'm, uh, not kidding; no. I was worried. About both of you?"

He's honestly seen enraged tigers on wildlife shows snarl less convincingly than Karen does at him.

" _You_ were worried. You were _fucking_ _concerned?!"_ She stalks past him to the window, sets the glass down so she can twitch the corner of the blind aside slightly. "Obviously not worried enough to engage your brain for ten seconds. Did anyone see you come in?"

David 'professionally paranoid' Lieberman kind of wants to take offence at that part. He's also aware he's been cursed at more in the last five minutes than that entire time he spent hiding out in a basement with a former Marine with anger management issues. "There were no shady looking dudes in parked cars watching your building if that's what you mean? And  _definitely_ no suspicious vans." He takes a moment to appreciate the irony of that one. "Someone did let me from the street; mid-thirties blond guy, kind of surfer-looking."

Karen nods, sharply. "Okay. 3b has a shift tonight, makes sense."

He gets the impression she hasn't been actually drinking much of the contents of her glass this evening: like the music that had been playing; the lights making it clear she's at home; everything else except the gun she's clutching, it feels like a smokescreen.

Like bait.

Oh. _Oh._

He says, quietly, "Can I ask what's going on, Karen? As I seem to have unwittingly walked right into the middle of.. something?"

She looks at him, disbelieving. "You seriously just.. drove all the way out here without checking _anything?_ You haven't even spoken to Madani?"

David really tries not to wince. "I... kind of just did a little digging to make sure you'd be home. In a totally non-creepy way, I promise. And nothing got flagged at all to suggest there was some kind of, uh, situation?"

He tries to look helpless; she honestly has not set that gun down for one second so far. "You know, I've just spent way too long being tracked to be comfortable with the... whole phone call thing? And it seemed.. important to talk to you. At the time. For Frank."

 _"_ Jesus _fucking Christ,_ Lieberman." She sits abruptly, right on the edge of a tall backed chair, and glares at him some more. "So you just..." She gestures distractedly with the hand holding the gun; he flinches. "Wandered into this, completely apropos of nothing?"

"Not _nothing._ Frank." He risks sounding a little hurt at that part.

She hisses, " _Stop saying his goddamn name."_ and he actually takes a step back at the vehemence in her voice, because he _really does not want_ to be the reason Karen Page loses the tenuous grip she has on her calm right now.

Although, by 'calm', he really means 'not actively crying and/or taking the safety off that gun'.

She says, "Here's the thing, David. I kind of pissed off someone with.. let's say, _resources._ Beyond what I'd normally just hand over to the cops. The kind of people that would just out-gun the cops; and then I'd be sitting here feeling shitty about that too."

He tries to nod, noncommittally; not quite sure if he pulled it off convincingly.

Karen tips her head to one side, regarding him. "But then, Dinah Madani also has a lot of resources; and she's.. still really pissed after everything that happened. And I had _her_ number. And she had a plan, so here we are. She also has a whole thing about being bugged, so it's all burner phones and analogue, where she can get away with it. Hacker-proof. Sucks to be you."

 _Okay._ He glances around the apartment, and back at her. "Uh, Karen? I get the feeling it kind of sucks to be you, too, right now... if you don't mind me saying? It mostly sounds like you're setting a trap with no back-up. That's kind of crazy."

_Wrong choice of words. Possibly. Perhaps._

Karen stares at the scotch glass for a moment instead of him; takes a small sip, considering, like she can't possibly get through this conversation without _something._ "It's not that kind of a trap, David."

Her voice is low and quiet and dangerous.

"You have _any_ idea how many people I've already gotten killed, over the years? And how many times people tried to kill me _before_ I even met Frank?"

 _Well,_ he thinks, _kind of;_ gets the feeling it's a rhetorical question and keeps quiet.

She takes another sip from the glass. "The first time I saw him, I was pretty sure he was trying to kill me too."

David opens his mouth to protest and she smiles, tight and brittle. "Stalking down a hospital corridor with a sawn-off shotgun like the fucking Terminator." She shakes her head at him, daring him to contradict her, but that part is actual public knowledge. He's seen the security footage. "I'd just wholesale lied my ass off trying to save our Kitchen Irish _shitbag_ client from Frank's... list, and the whole Punisher brand _philosophy_ wasn't exactly out there back then. I didn't _know_."

She shrugs; David follows the gun with his eyes. "He well could have been after me, for all I knew at the time. Of course, he made a point of telling me, later, that he wasn't aiming at me; scout sniper's honor and all. Later, y'know; after I'd broken into his house in the middle of the night and stolen a picture of his dead family, and then _told him about it while he was strapped to a hospital bed..._ he was actually utterly goddamn thrilled."

She looks back up at him; and he's honestly a little afraid at what he sees in her eyes. "But at the time, for a second there... I genuinely thought he was coming for me. For what I'd done."

He can't meet her eyes; really hopes she doesn't notice.

She takes a breath, "And David, I have _done some shit,_ don't pretend you didn't know."

It goes against every instinct for him not to pretend; not to hide behind a mask of genial bafflement. "I may have... done some digging"

"Oh I _bet_ you did. And how far did you dig, David, honestly?"

He shrugs; _this_ is why he hides behind a computer screen; behind agency credentials and lines of code.

He's figuring out quite quickly that Karen is not the kind of person that tolerates that kind of hiding.

" _How deep, David?_ Sealed juvie records deep?"

He looks at her helplessly, nods _yes, I'm sorry, what did you expect_. She leans back in the chair with an soft, mirthless laugh he's come to associate with people right on the verge of breaking.

"You could have told him about that part, you know; he's never asked and I don't think he'd even care. Ten to one he'd just say ' _attagirl'_ , and go back to talking about.. books. Probably books."

David quietly, carefully, perches on the arm of the sofa, facing her but with a safe amount of space between him and the gun. He's not sure if the tired fondness in her voice makes him more or less nervous. "But we can't tell him about this?"

Karen lifts her head to look at him; curious and disbelieving and beyond exhausted. "Have you _met_ Frank? Complete disregard for his own safety, yea high? Ran right in after a fucking suicide bomber last time I did this?"

She half-smiles, then. "You got him _out_ , you and Madani. And that's the end of it from his side; there's no coming back. You don't... brandish a bottle of Jack around someone in AA. _We_ don't tell Frank some well-connected psycho wants my head _again._ We keep him safe and we handle it. End of."

There's silence for a moment when she stops talking, all David can hear is the sound of his own breathing; heart rabbit-fast.

And in the quiet, the sound of smashing glass outside in the street; a soft, unfamiliar _pop-pop_ he can't quite place. They both flinch.

He watches Karen move to the window, sliding the blind aside enough to see out; flipping the phone open as it buzzes.

"Yes. Yeah I see it-- well it's pretty freaking difficult to miss. No, I-- Lieberman?"

She snaps over at him and he can't seem to stop staring at the windows; the crackling noise, that faint glow--

" _David_?" She beckons him over to the window. "That's not your car, right?"

He makes it over there, although his legs feel weirdly numb. A lot of things don't feel... quite right. _Shock,_ he thinks, although why he's reacting worse to this than he did to the actual times people were trying to kill him fairly recently... well that's another thing altogether.

"Uh--" It's not his car, of course it's not his car going up like a bonfire out there; he's not even nearly naive to park anywhere near the place _he wasn't even supposed to be, because do you even know how many street cameras there are in this city, seriously?_

"Nope," he manages, shakily. "Not yours either, I guess?"

She gives him another _look,_ and puts the phone back to her ear. "Yeah, we don't recognize it so-- random, probably."

Then, every word bitten off and enunciated clearly, "Yes. Agent. Madani. I _do_ know what a fucking trap looks like, and I'm not going out there--- this is insane, it's not exactly _quiet_ out there right now..." they both glance down at the street, where a crowd is starting to gather. Give it a couple of minutes and he figures there'll be blue lights and sirens and this is _so very much not what he had in mind when he left home this evening--_

Karen snaps into the phone, " _Okay_. Alright, I'm doing it now, I'm just not sure what--"

She holds the phone out abruptly, jabs at a button and a staticky version of Dinah Madani's voice crackles out into the silence--

" _\--still don't know what you thought you were doing, this isn't a fucking joke Karen--"_

Karen grimaces. "On speaker now, _as requested,_ Dinah. And I was doing _exactly what we agreed."_

There's a heavy, crackling sigh from the other end. "Yes, it's funny how you managed to completely misinterpret _everything we agreed,_ isn't it. Good evening David. Why did I watch you walk into my operation tonight? I thought _we_ agreed you were going to stay out of my way from now on?"

He winces; watches Karen roll her eyes. "Uh, total accident, coincidence... thing, Agent Madani. Absolutely not my intention to, uh, get in... either of your ways. In fact, I'd really like to be _out_ of the way as soon as possible." He looks out at the burning car again. "Unless... there's anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah. Don't tell Frank." Karen mutters, and he can almost hear Madani's blood pressure ratchet up.

"Karen, you swore up and down to me he wouldn't be--"

David holds his hands up, even if Madani can't see him. "I wouldn't-- I won't. I won't tell him." Ignoring that creeping nausea at the thought of more lies; more secrets. He doesn't want this; doesn't want Frank's continued, legal existence to be at the cost of them weaving even more of a fiction around him.

 

He looks at the gun, and the burning car, and asks, "Is this a secure line?"

 


End file.
